A Seven-Letter Vacation Curiosity

Feb 28, 2005

RAY: This puzzler was sent in by Bill Kojuck.

TOM: I used to watch his TV show!

RAY: I had to add four or five paragraphs of obfuscation and
declarification. Here it is.

Bill writes, "Last year, a friend of mine and his wife went on
vacation to Key West. They spent most of their time either sport
fishing on the high seas or carousing on Duval Street. My wife and I,
however, prefer a very different kind of vacation. We like hiking and
camping and using stone-age toilet facilities. So, we spent most of our
vacation in the woods in California and the Pacific Northwest.

When we returned from our trips, we compared notes. I said to my
friend that on our vacation we saw something that, when written down,
has all five vowels... and the vowels make up five of the seven letters in
the word."

TOM: You mean, A-E-I-O-and-U were all in the same word?

RAY: Right. They were in the same seven-letter word.

Bill says, "In fact, we saw not just one, but a few of these things.
My friend said, 'When we got to Key West, we also saw something that
when written down has all five vowels in its seven letters. In fact, we
saw quite a few of these as well.'

"Each of us wrote down our seven-letter word, and then exchanged
papers. They were the same word.

"But, what I saw and what he saw were very different things.

"The question is what did each of us see?"

Answer:

RAY: What he saw was some rather large sport utility vehicles called Sequoias. And what we saw -

TOM: Were trees.

RAY: Right. We saw some very large trees called sequoias. So who's our winner?

TOM: The winner this week is Kate Kelly from Drewsville, New Hampshire. And for having her answer selected at random from among all the correct answer that we got Kate will get a 26 dollar gift certificate to Shameless Commerce Division at cartalk.com with which she can pick up our newest CD, "Maternal Combustion, Calls About Moms and Cars." Which includes the call in which our dear mother, Elizabeth, revealed which one of us she loved the best.

RAY: Actually, I think she just wound up saying she'd take a bad case of bedbugs over either one of us.